Give Port Vila three or four days. Spend one in town: the Cultural Centre for the sand drawing, the market, then a nakamal at sunset. Spend one on the water at Hideaway Island or Erakor, and one driving the Efate ring road to the Blue Lagoon and Eton Beach. Add a flight to Tanna if the volcano is the point.
Port Vila is the small, harbour-front capital of Vanuatu, on the west coast of Efate. It is where the flights land, where the kava is poured at dusk, and where every trip to the volcano on Tanna or the wrecks off Santo is booked.
The national collection, and the best hour you can spend before seeing anything else in Vanuatu. The 2024 earthquake cost it showcases and some Lapita pottery, but it reopened fast. Ask for the sand-drawing demonstration.
The market mamas from across Efate sell fruit, root crops and cooked food under one roof, and the lunch counters serve laplap, tuluk and grilled fish. It reopened in July 2025 after the earthquake repairs. Come hungry and carry small notes.
A marine sanctuary a few minutes by free ferry from Mele Beach, with the best snorkelling within reach of town and an underwater post office about 3 m down. Buy the waterproof postcard on the island and post it yourself.
Limestone terraces and pools climb through the forest to a tall waterfall, with Mele Bay and Hideaway Island below. The walk from the entrance is about ten minutes, and there is a cafe at the base. Pair it with Hideaway on the same morning.
Vanuatu's first UNESCO World Heritage Site, inscribed in 2008: the early 17th-century chief's home at Mangaas, the cave where he died on Lelepa and the island where he lies buried. It is visited only with the community-run tour.
A swimming hole about 70 m long and 6 m deep, salty at high tide and fresher at low, with rope swings over the water. It is the headline stop on the ring road, about 45 minutes from town. Entry is paid in cash only.
A two-hour guided walk through a forest village on how kastom food, medicine, building and weapons work, with sand drawing and weaving. More staged than a real village, but the clearest introduction you can book from town.
A calm lagoon island five minutes by boat from a jetty just outside town, with a sheltered beach for swimming and snorkelling. The day voucher is 2,000 VT and half of it comes back as food, drink or watersports.
A reef-sheltered, shallow cove that makes the easiest snorkelling on Efate for beginners and children. It is best at high tide, and it sits a few minutes from the Blue Lagoon, so do both on one run.
A sealed loop around the island of well over 100 km, and the best way to see Efate in a day: the Blue Lagoon, Eton, the Takara hot springs and Havannah Harbour. Most stops sit down short unsealed side roads, and most charge a small entry.
A hexagonal waterfront room on the harbour, and one of the oldest names in town.
A public holiday on 5 March honouring the kastom chiefs.
The naghol towers go up on Pentecost on Saturdays from April to June.
A public holiday on 24 July, a week before the independence parades.
The biggest date of the year, 30 July, marking independence in 1980.
Rom dances on north Ambrym in August, reached by plane from Vila.
A free music festival at Saralana Park, usually around September.
A public holiday on 5 October.
A public holiday on 29 November, as the cyclone season begins.
The main international airport, about 6 km north of the centre. Flights from Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, New Caledonia and the Solomons.
Minibuses with B plates. Flag one down, name your stop and pay the flat cash fare; there are no fixed routes.
Mostly unmetered, so agree the fare before you get in. The easy choice after dark or with bags.
The national dish: grated yam or taro in coconut cream, baked in leaves.
Grated manioc or banana rolled in island cabbage and cooked in coconut milk.
Manioc dough around spiced pork, steamed. The market snack.
Breadfruit, taro or banana pounded with coconut cream.
Garfish in a tomato, onion, garlic and soy sauce.
Grass-fed cattle raised under Santo's coconut palms. Order the steak.
A native almond-like nut, sold at the market in bundles.
The ground root, drunk from a coconut shell at a nakamal at dusk.
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